On the sidelines of the National Space Symposium, we threw a little party and recorded a podcast, because why not? Our special guest was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb and the main focus of the conversation was the Defense Department’s new strategy on space commercial integration. Image: War on the Rocks The post Spacepower and the Private Sector appeared first on War on the Rocks ..read more

The Clements Center for National Security, the LBJ Presidential Library and the UT-Austin History Department hosted Talmage Boston, historian and partner at the Dallas law firm Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, for a book talk on How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents. Image: National Museum of the U.S. Navy The post Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents appeared first on War on the Rocks ..read more

On 11 March, Iran, Russia, and China launched the fourth iteration of their four-day annual trilateral naval exercises. According to Iranian Second Rear Admiral Mustafa Taj al-Dini, the exercises “testif[y] to the emergence of a new alliance to ensure security in the northern Indian Ocean.” The reality, though, might not be quite so dramatic. First held in 2019, these exercises have always taken place in the Arabian Sea, and been based out of the Iranian port of Chabahar. They occur in a highly strategic corridor in the northern Indian Ocean, which links the Arabian Peninsula to Chinese ports ..read more

In 2021, Lami Kim wrote “A Hawkish Dove? President Moon Jae-In and South Korea’s Military Buildup” for War on the Rocks, in which she discussed contradictory South Korean policies of peaceful engagement with North Korea and a military buildup to secure operational control on the peninsula from the United States. In response to recent South Korean parliamentary elections, we asked her to look back on the article. Read more below. Photo Credit:  U.S. Air Force (Photo by Staff Sgt. Alex Fox Echols III) In your article “A Hawkish Dove? President Moon Jae-in and South Korea’s Militar ..read more

Elizabeth Varon, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South (Simon & Schuster, 2023) When I recently visited Montgomery, Alabama, I went to see the rows of rusted plinths that together make up the city’s Peace and Justice Memorial. The memorial is designed to replicate the cycle of a lynching. Walking through the memorial, one will see plinths hanging from the ceiling, and others rising out of the ground like coffins. Each plinth represents a county, inscribed with the names of thousands of Black Americans who had been lynched by their neighbors and fellow citizens, and the d ..read more

A lot happens every day. Alliances shift, leaders change, and conflicts erupt. With In Brief, we’ll help you make sense of it all. Each week, experts will dig deep on a single issue happening in the world to help you better understand it. *** The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plagued by conflict for more than three decades, but in recent months the war – largely in the country’s eastern regions – has reached a fever pitch. The armed M23 rebel group – one of the many local and foreign armed rebel groups and militias in the country – has The post In Brief: The Conflict in t ..read more

Chinese war drums beat on as pundits hotly debate if or when Beijing will try to seize Taiwan by force. There is no apparent countdown to D-day for initiating a blockade or invasion, but major strategic indicators clearly show that General Secretary Xi Jinping is still preparing his country for a showdown. Developments under way suggest Taiwan will face an existential crisis in single-digit years, most likely in the back half of the 2020s or front half of the 2030s. Despite the manifesting peril, China’s recent economic setbacks and faux conciliations suggest to some, including President Josep ..read more

In July of 2023, Japan’s largest port, Nagoya, fell victim to a lockbit ransomware attack, causing operations to grind to a halt and Toyota to suspend its import-export packaging lines. This was just one of many recent incidents within the larger marine transportation system and showcases how fragile the sector is to these attack profiles. On Feb. 21, the Biden administration released an executive order designed to meet the long-term challenges needed to improve the cyber security of the nation’s ports, ships, maritime industrial supply chain, and the da ..read more

Recently, a journalist questioned Vice Adm. Brad Cooper of U.S. Central command about naval operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, “When was the last time that the U.S. Navy operated at this pace for a couple months?” The admiral’s response was telling: “I think you’d have to go back to World War II where you have ships who are engaged in combat. When I say engaged in combat, where they’re getting shot at, we’re getting shot at, and we’re shooting back.” Cooper described the engagements that have occurred since late 2023 with Houthi drones and missiles The post Houthi Attacks in the R ..read more

Earlier this year, China’s Coast Guard forced a Filipino fishing boat captain and crew away from Scarborough Shoal, which the United Nations International Tribunal has established as the territory of the Philippines, demanding that they dump their catch. Indeed, China’s Coast Guard continues to use aggression and force to coerce and intimidate other nations — even in those other nations’ territorial waters. China’s Coast Guard also routinely forces collisions with Filipino fishing and supply vessels, and harasses other vessels in the South China Sea. China views these gray-zone tactics as a na ..read more